missioners afforded grounds for severe criticism and tended further to add to the provocations, and inflame the passions of the Southern people.

EFFORTS FOR RECOGNITION.

The Confederate States also sent a commission to Europe headed by William L. Yancey of Alabama, with a view to procure the recognition by England and France of the independence of the Confederate States.

It had been often urged by speakers and writers to the people of the South, when favoring secession, and in controverting the probability that war would result, that the United States were too deeply interested in our products to go to war with us; and that England and France being manufacturing countries, and largely interested in the growth of raw fabrics in the Southern States, would be by sympathy based on interest and jealousy toward the United States, the only remaining part of this country. that offered them competition, would become our friends and allies, and upon the formation of a Southern government would promptly recognize us; and thus tend to prevent war. Our people, as well as our government were sadly disappointed, when by the entire failure of those governments to move on that line, they suddenly realized their fixed purpose of neutrality in form, but quasi hostility in fact and effect; and that from these powerful and controlling European nations all the recognition we could get, until our independence should be achieved, was that of "belligerents;" for whatever of sympathy may have been felt by English and French people toward the Confederate States, it became more and more apparent that we had no well grounded hope of any from those governments.

EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.-PRESIDENT BUCHANAN.-ACTION OF THE BORDER STATES.

The work of separation and reorganization having been completed to the satisfaction of the friends of the revolution, there seemed to be but one check to the general joy and happiness of the people; one fearful barrier to the immediate national prosperity. Our house was easily set in order; our affairs among ourselves were adjusted without an apparent element of strife or discord; for, as to all the elements, moral, religious, social and material, all that exert any control in politics and government, we were then a united, earnest, and enthusiastic people. The great check was in the terrible truth, that our relations with the government of the United States with which the Southern States had been so long bound by fraternal, social, material, and constitutional ties were not settled. The great problem was still to be solved-whether our demand to depart in peace, live separate, and be an independent nation, was to be allowed without force by that government. The public awaited the determination of the issue with deep anxiety, and with mixed emotions of hope, dread, and fear. Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri, all slaveholding Southern States, had not seceded. Strong hopes seemed to be entertained by the leading statesmen of most of those States that terms of adjustment and reconstruction might still be agreed on; and that by wise and prudent councils the final dismemberment of the Union might be prevented.

These hopes, however, were not based on any overtures, propositions, or manifestation of amiable temper or peaceful designs by the Republican party, in or out of Congress,

or from the executive department of the government. Their leaders seemed defiant; their political press contemptuous in tone; while the members in Congress promptly voted down every proposal that sprang from Southern men seeking to conciliate and reunite the sections.

The seats of the members from the seceding States had all been vacated upon the passage of the ordinance of secession by the respective States. The members from the border slave States not seceded, were left to contend against the overwhelming numbers of the Republicans and War Democrats in Congress.

A peace-Congress composed of delegates from those border States was held, and presided over by the venerable Ex-President John Tyler of Virginia, to which many looked with anxious hope, but was unavailing. Hon. John C. Breckenridge, senator from Kentucky, the honored leader of the southern wing of the old Union Democracy, remained in his seat, and brought to bear his powerful logic and eloquence to no purpose but to satisfy himself and the country that there was but one alternative left the South-submission to the new administration, and the rule of the sectional Republican party, and the influence and logical sequences of its teachings and doctrines on the institution of slavery and the people interested in and identified with it, or prompt preparations to resist its aggressive and coercive power. Propositions for compromise conciliation were submitted by the venerable and sage leader of the old southern Whigs, Hon. John C. Crittenden of Kentucky. They too were spurned by the unyielding Republicans.

President Buchanan had been defeated in his efforts to preserve the constitution of his country and prolong its

unity and peace. His policy was condemned by the omnipotent voice of the people of his own section of the Union. His administration, like his long and eventful public life, was drawing to a close. He had lost prestige to a large extent, and fallen between the contending hosts, not looked to as a leader of the North, not relied on as a friend of the South, or dreaded as among her strongest foes. He provoked the ire of the Northern people by an alleged inclination to favor, or to be too lenient. towards the South. He provoked the animadversions of Southern people, by what appeared to be a vacillating policy and course of conduct. A patriot desiring to prevent dissolution and strife, and to see a peaceful termination of the pending troubles, but without power to control the storm which he would not aggravate by what appeared would be a futile attempt at prompt suppression.

His long and able services to his country and government in Congress, in the cabinet, as minister abroad and as President of the United States, begun in the brighter and purer days of the republic, characterized by unfalter ing devotion to what he regarded the public good, through sunshine and shade, amid the storms of public passion, and in the calm and serene days of the peaceful past, was now about to terminate with the violent severance of the Federal Union he had so long loved and cherished.

SECESSION AND ACCESSION OF BORDER STATES.

All efforts to reconcile the alienated sections having failed, and the people of the border slaveholding States having left to them the choice of their own course, to remain in the Union and abide the consequences to flow to themselves from a government regarded as to a large

extent hostile to them, and their institutions, and to be compelled as citizens subject to that government to aid in subjugating those who had withdrawn, and with whom. they had common cause of complaint,—or to unite their fortunes and destiny with them,-did not long hesitate..

As South Carolina had led the cotton-growing States, and seemed by common consent to bear the palm for the unanimity and promptness of her people, Virginia now seemed to be looked to with deep interest as likely to affect the action and course of the border States. Many of the people of the cotton States had favored and voted for secession as a remedy under the hope and belief that it would be peaceful. But Virginia adopted it, after its peaceful features had vanished; and when her people knew that grim-visaged war was at her gates as an alternative, threatened and morally certain, to submission; and with a strong probability that her own bosom would be the seat of the deadly and wasteful conflict.

Her ordinance of secession was adopted on the 17th of April. Her sublime example was followed by Arkansas on the 6th of May; by North Carolina on the 20th, and by Tennessee on the 8th of June.

Maryland cast her lot on the side of the Union, notwithstanding many of her noblest people were true to the South; and many of her brave sons voluntarily assumed the labor and danger of defending her cause.

The Executive of Missouri declared that State seceded on the 8th of August. But the people were opposed to the movement, and went with the Union. Still a few of the noble and brave joined our standard.

In Kentucky, a provisional southern government was organized after it was known that the State authorities would not act, and when it was strongly probable that the